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Tuesday, 16 February 2016

The Longlists for the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals

One of my favourite times of the year is the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal awards, which growing up this formed an important part of my reading life. We used to hold a shadowing group in my school library and though this I was able to find and read books that I never would have previously read, opening up discussions, debates and endless championing for our favourite books. I was also lucky enough to go to the award the year Meg Rossoff won, where she told me to be aware of falling pianos and met Kevin Brooks whose work had captivated me that year. I used to love read the six shortlisted books, discussing then in our library and then going to our regional shadowing meeting and presenting to other schools our book. I'll never forget having to present Cosmic boy by Frank Cottrelll-Boyce playing 14 year old Liam at the age of 18 and having everyone ask me if I was really 14! That was also the first day i met Patrick Ness. But I'm digressing with a lot of random stories. Basically this is, I feel, a really important award and this year's longlist is as strong as ever with some great choices across both awards. Particular favourites from me come in the form of There Will Be Lies, The Lie Tree, The Rest of Us Just Live Here, The Shepard's Crown and The Sleeper and the Spindle all of which I hope make the shortlist and which I think will be a tough competition!The shortlists for both the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2016 will be announced on Tuesday 15th March, with the winners being announced on Monday 20th June and I can't wait to see what that has to hold!!Check out the list below, let us know which books you've read, which your looking forward to reading and your favourite memories of the Carnegie!! Use the hashtag#ckg16